Several industries share the requirement for a cost-and time-efficient way to wash motor vehicles. New and used automobile dealers and car rental agencies appeal to appearance-sensitive customers, and often must wash every car in inventory after each rain. Truck operators must keep their vehicles clean to comply with state and local regulations. Car and van fleet operators must maintain an acceptable appearance to the public on a continuous basis. Hand washing such vehicles is labor intensive and otherwise expensive.
Prior art solutions to this need are costly in both time and money. One solution is to move each vehicle to a commercial washing facility when necessary. These facilities often charge substantial fees, especially for large trucks. In addition to the fee charged by the washing facility, the user must also bear the expense of a driver to move the vehicle, including the loss of his services to perform other functions. This method also produces logistical problems in that vehicles must be properly staged and sequenced when dense parking schemes do not provide aisle access for every vehicle.
Larger businesses have approached this problem by building their own washing facility. The large capital expenditures required make this solution infeasible for smaller businesses, and are often economically unjustifiable for even the large operators. In addition, a driver is still needed to move the vehicles between their parking places and the washing facility.
Another solution attempted in the past has been to supply water at high pressure through a hose from a centrally located pump. One disadvantage of this method is that impurities in the water leave streaks and spots when the vehicle is air dried. Hand drying the vehicle to avoid spots is time consuming and labor-intensive. Another disadvantage is that long runs of high-pressure hose are expensive and failure-prone.
To combat these difficulties, mobile wash systems have appeared in the prior art. These generally receive water at low pressure through a hose and use a power plant and pump to supply water at high pressure through a discharge hose. The user must still manually apply soap and wax and must manually dry the vehicle to avoid spotting.
Some of these systems have included a water softening mineral tank to remove spot-causing impurities from the water. The mineral tank's ability to soften water is limited; when the softening ability is exhausted, the tank must be "regenerated" by its manufacturer. One problem with this system is that the manufacturer charges a substantial fee for regenerating the tank, which makes the prior art system's cost of operation high. Another problem is that the system is unavailable for use from time the tank is exhausted until the manufacturer returns with another regenerated tank. Also, these systems do not have a convenient means for prerinsing, soaping or washing, waxing, and virtually spot free rinsing.
In summary, for large fleets of vehicles, washing by hand, use of a commercial washing facility, or building a dedicated washing facility are each prohibitively expensive. Centrally supplied hoses and most mobile wash systems leave spots or require costly hand drying. Mobile systems which remove impurities for virtually spot-free drying have high continuous operating expenses and frequent, unacceptable periods of unavailability and are not essentially self-contained vehicle washing units.